


He Ain't Hairy, He's My Brother

by somebetterwords



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen, Minor Injuries, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5003302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebetterwords/pseuds/somebetterwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When Finn got home from football camp, the July between sophomore and junior year, Kurt could tell right away that something was different. A good different or a bad different, he hadn’t decided yet, but something had changed.”</p>
<p>
  <a href="http://somebetterwords.tumblr.com/post/131202213819/he-aint-hairy-hes-my-brother">Read/reblog on Tumblr.</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Ain't Hairy, He's My Brother

**Author's Note:**

> For day 3 of kurtoberfest. Canon divergent (obviously), set between seasons 1 and 2. Title is a play on the song He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother by the Hollies.

When Finn got home from football camp, the July between sophomore and junior year, Kurt could tell right away that something was different. A good different or a bad different, he hadn’t decided yet, but something had changed.

Carole had been the only one to pick him up at the bus terminal. Not because Burt and Kurt didn’t want to go, but Carole had put her foot down. She hadn’t seen her baby in _two months_ , and she was probably going to be a clingy mess, and she was gonna need some alone time with him. So maybe she had noticed already, had written it off and/or made peace with it.

Kurt couldn’t put a finger on what exactly it was for the life of him, but as soon as Finn stepped through the door he could feel it. He could feel the very air shift around them. It wasn’t in his head. A quick glance at his father told him Burt didn’t feel the shift, but Kurt _knew_ it was real.

He stood leaning against the banister while Burt stepped forward to pull Finn into a bear hug and Kurt took that time to scrutinize. Finn looked taller. But he _only_ looked taller, the height difference between him and Burt was the same as always. Kurt broke away from observation mode to snicker internally that he had experienced a growth spurt over the first half of summer and Finn hadn’t. Slowly but surely, he was conquering the great divide. (No, he wasn’t. He was never gonna be the same height as Finn Hudson. That just wasn’t realistic.)

And then Burt pulled away and it was Kurt’s turn. And then the strangest thing happened.

Finn embraced him.

God, that sounded so much meaner than Kurt thought it. It wasn’t that Finn never hugged him, really! Their parents were practically married, and as far as they were concerned, that made them practically brothers. And brothers hugged sometimes.

But practically brothers wasn’t brothers, and Finn was still… Kurt didn’t want to say scared, he really hoped that Finn was not scared of him. But he definitely wasn’t totally comfortable with Kurt. And that was fine, because Kurt wasn’t totally comfortable with Finn anymore either, not after what happened in the basement.

(It hurt, that Kurt couldn’t trust Finn because of something he did, whereas Finn couldn’t trust Kurt because of something he _was_ , but life hurt. Kurt would deal.)

They didn’t completely trust each other, but they did (for the most part, on most days) like each other. And they were trying. So they hugged, and they hugged often, but never properly. When Finn hugged Kurt, it was two arms circled loosely over his shoulders, kind of flopping there, maybe with a heavy pat to the back. When Kurt hugged Finn, he was slow in his approach, hands outstretched cautiously like he was trying to pet a dog who’d never met him and then planted firmly on Finn’s upper back so he wouldn’t get spooked by the idea of those hands wandering. They only made physical contact from the chest up, and they pulled away from their hugs much quicker than they entered them.

So Kurt was really shocked when Finn swooped down to grab him around the waist and pull him into a bone-crushing hug. Their hips didn’t even have the half foot distance between them they normally did! His arms wrapped around Finn’s shoulders reflexively, and he squeaked in surprise when Finn lifted him clear off his feet.

“Missed you, little brother!”

It was such a pleasant shock that Kurt completely forgot to go back into observation mode.

“Missed you too, big brother.”

Finn set him back down and took a step back (normally he would take two) and tousled Kurt’s hair lightly. “Not as little anymore though, are you? I _told_ you that you still had some puberty left to go. Even if your voice doesn’t drop, I was still right!” He grinned that lopsided grin of his before turning back to Carole. “What are we eating, Mom? I’m starved.”

It was such a pleasant shock that Kurt didn’t even run to the nearest mirror to fix his hair. He just followed the rest of the family as they drifted towards the kitchen.

**

Once they got past the whole privacy thing, Finn was actually a very easy person to live with. His personal hygiene was, at times, questionable (though maybe Kurt only felt that way because his own grooming was so impeccable), but Finn Hudson was far better at keeping a house hygienic than one would ever expect at first glance.

(“Mom was always working so hard when I was a kid,” Finn had told him once. “I couldn’t be trusted near the stove after that time I burned my eyebrows off, but I just wanted to make her life easier however I could. It’s kind of impossible to screw up vacuuming, even for me.”)

So when their families started blending together, putting together a chore chart was smooth sailing. Finn genuinely liked cleaning, liked how it made him feel useful and capable, so he got those tasks. Kurt had never had a kitchen accident that necessitated a trip to the ER, so he handled the cooking stuff.

(When the day came that they both made it out of their dead-end town— not if, _when_. Kurt knew Finn was scared to death of ending up a Lima loser, and he knew he’d drag that boy out of Lima by the ear if there were no other options— if they ended up in the same city, they’d make really good roommates.)

Kurt handled the cooking, and Finn was pretty much the opposite of a picky eater. He didn’t have any foods he refused to allow near his plate, he was always an eager guinea pig when Kurt got in an experimental mood (which put him a step above Burt), and he was always quick to praise whatever was put in front of him. His only hang-up was being squeamish about how cooked his meat was, but Kurt preferred his own medium-well, so that wasn’t a problem.

So it was a surprise when Finn sidled up to him on the patio while he manned the grill— Kurt had sent his dad back inside to put on some sunscreen and then Burt had stayed in the kitchen to help Carole with sides— and slung an arm over his shoulder as he requested his steak be rarer than usual.

“Uh, sure,” Kurt agreed, doing his best to mask his confusion. “How rare are we talking?”

“This one is perfect!” Finn grabbed the tongs out of Kurt’s hands and plated one of the steaks that Kurt had just flipped two minutes ago.

“Finn, that was still searing! It’s probably going to spurt a little when you cut it open.”

“Awesome,” Finn nodded enthusiastically. “That’s exactly what I’m going for.”

Kurt stared at him for a minute before grabbing the tongs back and redirecting his attention to the grill. “Don’t blame me if you get salmonella.” He took another steak off for Carole and moved the remaining two to the warm part of he grate. “Cover both of these in foil,” he said, handing the second plate over.

“But won’t that make it cook more? I don’t want it to cook more, I want it _super_ rare.”

“No, Finn,” Kurt spoke slowly, wondering what had come over him. “It’ll keep the juices in.”

“Right. Cool.”

Well, that was different. Maybe the cafeteria at football camp had left Finn a changed man.

**

Finn ate enough to fill Kurt’s stomach twice over.

That wasn’t new.

Finn kept tabs on how much everyone else ate too.

That was _definitely_ new.

Finn wasn’t totally Cro-Magnon about his food, normally. He wasn’t the ‘don’t touch my food it is my food you will lose your hand if you get in between this food and my mouth’ type, but he wouldn’t lose any sleep over the fact that Kurt ate like a bird on occasion. _More food for me_ was his mentality, normally.

“Kurt, dude,” he scolded as he started piling mashed potatoes onto his plate. “You need to eat more.”

Kurt tried to pull his plate out of the way, but Finn was faster and just followed its path, looming over Kurt until he was satisfied and sat back to serve himself.

“I’m eating plenty! And I was _going_ to finish the salad before you blanketed my plate in starch.”

“You need the carbs more than you need the vitamins.”

Kurt looked at their parents with pleading eyes, but only received muffled sniggers in return. He figured he’d get as much, since Carole was always telling him he was a growing boy who needed more food and Burt knew that the more junk Kurt ate, the more he could sneak for himself.

Finn looked up sharply and pointed at Burt with the tines of his fork. “And _you_ need the vitamins more than you need the carbs, so you’re finishing the salad. I know you had Pop-Tarts for breakfast.”

Burt was so dumbfounded that he’d been caught, he didn’t even pose an argument. He did side eye the hell out of Finn while he ate his greens. So maybe Kurt wasn’t alone in noticing something was up.

Kurt smiled around every mouthful of his potatoes. He decided that whatever the shift was, it wasn’t a bad one. But he was definitely finding out what it was.

**

“Whoa, you went all out with the weight training, didn’t you?”

Finn glanced back at Kurt as he took long strides (though those were of course regular-sized strides by Finn standards) up their driveway. “What do you mean?”

Kurt jogged to catch up to him, duffle bag bumping against his hip with every step. “Well, I’m carrying your gear bag right now.”

“Uh huh,” Finn nodded for him to continue.

“And you’re carrying two months worth of everything else.”

Finn looked down at the two suitcases in his hands and back up at Kurt before shrugging. “Yeah,” he said shakily. “I guess you’re right.”

Then he got the lead out and practically ran through the open front door and up the stairs to his room.

Kurt followed after slowly, wondering if that little show was meant to be Finn’s attempt at escaping Kurt’s suspicions. He sure hoped not, because Finn had just run up their stairs with a hundred pounds of luggage on his arms and another fifty on his back, carrying it like it was nothing.

And as he approached Finn’s door, Kurt noticed the other boy hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Hey, Finn?” Kurt tapped on the open door before stepping over the threshold and dropping Finn’s gear bag to the side. “Do you want any help unpacking?”

Finn stiffened up in panic before shaking his head jerkily, avoiding Kurt’s gaze. “I’m fine on my own, Kurt. Thanks.”

That stupid heterosexual panic sent a flare of anger up Kurt’s spine, and he steeled himself with it before walking farther inside. “You know I’m not out to _sniff your underwear_ or something, right? I know that I made you uncomfortable last year, and I’m sorry, but I don’t know how many times I can tell you I’m sorry and how many times I can watch you pretend to accept it before I give up! What will it take for you to realize that I’m not some freak show looking to take advantage of you? Because I swear to you, that was never what I wanted. I never knew our parents would hit it off like they did and I certainly never knew we’d end up living together. I just wanted a chance to spend some time with you, and my innocent little schoolboy crush on you may have been pathetic, but that’s all it ever was. And I don’t even have it anymore! I just want to be your friend! You were the first boy who ever treated me with a modicum of kindness and I was overzealous and I was stupid. But I’m not diseased and I’m not contagious and I’m not trying to _convert_ you. So if you could stop flinching away from me because you’re afraid I’m gonna try to shove my hand down your pants when we’re within ten feet of each other, that would be great.”

He dragged the heel of his hand over his cheeks, wiping away the tears that had leaked out his eyes, then turned on his heel to storm away.

Finn rushed to close the door and stood in front of it, blocking Kurt’s path before he got the chance to walk out. “That’s not why!” He gripped Kurt by the upper arms and steered him to sit on the bed, crouching in front of him. “You have got it completely wrong. A couple of months ago you wouldn’t have been wrong but this time around you totally are! Kurt, listen, I was a douche to you.” He slapped his palm over Kurt’s mouth to muffle any protest, then took it off and continued speaking. “Let me finish. I was a douche, even before I called you that word. I _knew_ you had a crush on me, I knew I could have at least told you I was straight and tried to nip it in the bud, and I know now that you would have backed off if I did. But I didn’t, because I liked the attention you gave me, even if I didn’t always like the way you gave it. And even though I don’t always get you, I’ve gotten over my crap, and I really like you as a person. You _are_ my friend. Actually, you’re my brother, but you’re also a friend. And you’re a way better one than I am, because you’re willing to slushie yourself in the face for me, but I still get huffy when people make gay jokes at me. And I’m a moron, so I try way too hard not to give them any ammo, even when there’s no way they’d ever know that you got me to try that fancy tea with the gypsum. Unless Coach Sylvester had your room bugged.”

“Ginseng, Finn,” Kurt said, voice scratchy from emotion. “And you’re not a moron, so please don’t call yourself one.”

“I think you might be the only person I know who means it when he says that.”

Finn gathered him up in a hug, and Kurt went easily, pressing his face to Finn’s shoulder and breathing in the scent of pine needles and freshly turned dirt. (Did he change colognes without Kurt noticing?) Kurt pulled away to smile at Finn tremulously. “I think we’re all out of fancy tea, but we could have some warm milk? And then I’ll help you unpack and we won’t mention it to anyone so you don’t get any crap for it.”

Finn smiled back, but it was strained. “I actually really would rather unpack on my own. Not because of the reason you thought, but yeah. Could we still do the milk though?”

Kurt took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, of course we can. Come on downstairs with me.” He made his way back out, Finn close on his heels.

Kurt was itching with curiosity, but he would let it go for now. That conversation had been a turning point, and he didn’t want to lose that.

And Finn totally went jogging every evening, so he just needed to wait for him to leave before he could ferret out any secrets.

**

Finn and Kurt were the last ones to wake up the next morning, as they often were. Kurt marched straight to the coffee machine to pour himself a cup. Finn marched straight to his mother to hug her around the waist from behind.

“He’s been real clingy since he got back,” Burt murmured when Kurt sat down beside him.

Kurt would have responded, but their attention was diverted when Carole gasped loudly. “Finn, you’re burning up!”

Finn shook his head in a panic, like he had when Kurt had offered to help unpack. “I feel right as rain, mom! I just run a little hot, you know that! Or— or maybe your hands are cold? That’s definitely it, your hands are cold! You have nothing to be concerned about. Okay, well, I’m gonna go to Artie’s for some Halo.” He began backing away. “Don’t worry about breakfast, I’ll grab something on the way!”

“Finn Hudson!” He stopped in his tracks when Carole barked out his name in that tone. “You get your fanny back in here or so help me god a fever will be the _least_ of your concerns!”

Finn took timid steps back into the kitchen. He looked like he was about to vomit… but not because he looked sick.

Kurt abandoned his coffee and darted forward to stand in front of Finn. He pressed the back of his hand to Finn’s face— holy crap, Kurt could probably cook an egg on his forehead— before schooling his face and turning around. “Carole, I’m sure it’s nothing to panic over,” he said, voice soft and soothing. “This is the longest you’ve ever gone without seeing him, so you’re working yourself up over a teeny-tiny bit of warmness. Let me take Finn’s temperature, and if it is even a tenth of a degree above one hundred point four, we’ll get him to the hospital.”

Carole took a deep breath before nodding. Kurt could feel her eyes following them as he pressed a hand to the small of Finn’s back and nudged him upstairs.

“Kurt,” Finn began protesting as soon as the door to the master bathroom was closed and locked behind him.

“Sit down.”

Finn stood watching him while Kurt rooted through the medicine cabinet. “I’m honestly fine. Like you said, Mom’s freaking out over nothing.”

Kurt shoved him to sit down on the toilet.

“Kurt, _please_ don’t—”

“Shut up,” Kurt hissed as he turned on the thermometer. He turned to face Finn and shoved it into his own mouth before tipping Finn’s chin up to face the ceiling.

“Kurt?”

Kurt made as audible a noise of annoyance as he could without jostling the thermometer tucked under his tongue, and Finn slipped into silence. Kurt tore off a length of toilet paper and folded it into a square before soaking it with cold water from the tap. He wrung out the extra water over Finn’s face and laid the makeshift cold compress over his forehead. Every time it got warm, he soaked it again and repeated the process.

The thermometer beeped, and Kurt pulled it out of his mouth. He read the temperature and nodded in satisfaction. One person in the bathroom actually _did_ have a tendency towards abnormally warm body temperature, and it wasn’t Finn Hudson. Kurt swung open the bathroom door and stepped out. He wasn’t remotely surprised to see his dad sitting on the bed and fiddling with his socks, the picture of casualness to anyone who didn’t know him better. “One hundred on the dot, Dad!”

“Oh, thank God.” Burt heaved a sigh of relief before rising to his feet. “Lemme get a look.”

Finn was, thankfully, quick enough on the uptake to toss the papers in the trash, shuffle forward to stand next to Kurt, and keep his mouth shut.

Burt took the thermometer from Kurt’s hands to read it for himself, then pressed his hand to Finn’s forehead for confirmation. “You,” he said while pointing a finger at Finn, “are on strict bedrest for the day. None of that video game junk.” He swung his finger around to Kurt. “And _you_ are taking care of him instead of coming in to help me with the books today, because his mom is gonna smother him if she stays home from work with him.”

“Do I still get paid?”

Burt chuckled and tousled Kurt’s hair on his way to the bathroom. “Call me if you need anything. Get some fluids in him, kiddo!”

**

“So are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on with you or do I need to torture it out of you?”

Finn stared sullenly down at the bottle of SunnyD in his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit,” Kurt snapped. “Do you think I’m blind or stupid?”

“Kurt.” Finn’s warm brown eyes flashed a dangerous golden. Twenty-four hours ago, Kurt would have sworn it was a trick of the light. “Drop it.”

“Finn. No.”

Finn chugged the juice and crushed the bottle in his hands.

Kurt gestured at the corpse of the bottle. “You just mangled hard plastic with your bare hands, Finn!”

Finn glanced down at it in surprise, then flung it into his trashcan. He crossed his arms over his chest, hands tucked under his armpits. “Weight training, dude. Just like you said.”

“Finn,” Kurt said his name more softly, trying for a more gentle tack. “I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but I do know you can’t go through it alone. You shouldn’t have to. I’m right here. Please, just let me help you.” Kurt subjected Finn to the full force of his puppy-dog eyes, and Finn almost crumbled.

But he didn’t. Instead he set his shoulders and turned away to stare at a wall. “You’ve got enough problems in your life, Kurt. You don’t need to deal with this one.”

Kurt was pretty sure he was vibrating with vexation. He jumped up from his spot at the end of the bed to stand over Finn with clenched fists. “Yes, I do! I need to deal with this because you are my family and I love you and I _need_ to protect you! Dad is already suspicious, and as soon as your mom gets over the euphoria of having her little boy back, she’ll be right behind him! And what will you do then, Finn? What will you do the next time you go in for a cuddle and the other person notices you’re a human furnace? What will you do when someone realizes you’re stronger than an Olympic champion? What will you do when every last stitch of clothing you own is left in tatters?”

“How did you know about my clothes?” Finn untangled himself from his bed sheets and clawed his way back to standing. He stared at Kurt with fury plain on his face as he backed away. “You snuck into my room and went through my stuff, didn’t you?”

“You shoved Pandora’s box under my nose, of course I opened it!”

Finn started shaking too. “I can’t fucking believe you,” he spat out. “You stay the hell away from me.” He turned his back on Kurt and started racing out of the room.

But surely, he knew by now that Kurt Hummel could be like a dog with a bone.

“Fucking make me, Hudson!” Kurt barrelled after him, heedless of the glare Finn threw over his shoulder before speeding up.

Whatever the hell Finn had gotten himself into, it made him pretty damn fast but no less clumsy. He tripped over his own feet and face planted into the glass door leading out to the patio. Kurt could hear the cartilage of his nose crack with a stomach turning squelch.

“Oh my god,” Kurt said, skidding to a halt before he ran into Finn and pushed him harder into the glass. “Oh my god, you broke your nose!”

He touched a palm to Finn’s back, and it seemed to jolt him back to awareness. “Kurt, get away!” Finn shook him off and slid the door open, slamming it shut behind him.

Kurt slid it back open and stepped outside. He took careful steps forward, watching from the deck as Finn paced circles on their lawn, his body wracked with tremors. “Finn, you’re trembling.”

Finns stopped his pacing. “I know,” he whispered, pained and defeated.

And then the world exploded before Kurt’s eyes, and all he could see was a burst of golden. He slammed his eyes shut, covered them with his hands, but still he could see that blinding, bright light filtering through his lids. The birds stopped singing, the world fell silent, and then they started chirping twice as loud.

Kurt opened his eyes hesitantly. The first thing to catch his attention when he did was a scrap of red cotton fluttering in the breeze, the same colour as the McKinley High gym shirt Finn had been wearing when…

Kurt looked to the patch of grass his brother had been pacing. In his place stood an _enormous_ dog, watching him with wary eyes.

Wary, warm brown eyes that were way too smart to belong on any dog’s face.

“Finn?”

The dog panted heavily before opening its mouth— who did Kurt think he was kidding? That beast was a wolf, a gigantic wolf with gigantic wolf teeth that could tear his limbs apart— to let its tongue loll out in the canine version of a lopsided grin. It trotted forward, butted its nose against Kurt’s hand, and sat back on its haunches.

Kurt dropped to his knees. He ran a shaky hand from the top of the wolf’s— _Finn’s_ — head, down his neck. His hand caught on the stretched collar of Finn’s shirt, and he tugged sharply to pull it over his head, tutting at Finn’s whine.

“Hush your face and let me get it off before it cuts off your circulation,” Kurt muttered. He pushed the shirt down to Finn’s paws and moved to get the jogging pants off Finn’s hind legs. (He had _hind_ legs. His very human friend was currently in the body of a freaking wolf and Kurt was concerning himself with divesting said wolf of the shredded remains of clothing still hanging off his wolf body instead of dealing with the fact that Finn Hudson was a freaking wolf, holy crap)

Kurt crawled back and sat down cross-legged, giving Finn the space to step out of the clothes pooled at his paws. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath because _Finn had paws_. He couldn’t even remember the possibilities he had been imagining when he tried to figure out what had changed about Finn while he was at camp, but this definitely had not been one of them.

Something warm and wet slid over Kurt’s nose. “Did you just _lick_ me?” Kurt asked, blinking his eyes open and scowling at Finn.

Finn just nodded and licked his nose again. He took a step back and lay down with his head in Kurt’s lap.

“So,” Kurt sighed and began scratching behind Finn’s ears absentmindedly. “Werewolf?”

Finn let out a huff of breath.

“How the fuck did this happen?”

Finn rolled onto his back and held his front paws over his eyes.

“Is that you saying it’s embarrassing?”

He rolled back over and stood up again so he could bat at one of Kurt’s forearms.

“Oh! Duh.” Kurt covered his eyes and ducked his head down for good measure. The world turned golden again, and when it returned to normal he peeked up. He saw a flash of Finn, naked as a jaybird, and let out a squeak before ducking down again.

Half a minute later, there was a heavy (human) hand landing heavily on his shoulder and squeezing tight. “I’m decent, dude. Let’s go back inside.”

Kurt took the hand offered and was pulled to his feet as easily as if Finn was picking up a shopping bag. “Your nose is fine again,” he noted, running his index finger lightly over the bridge of it.

“Yeah, any injuries I get in this body seem to go poof when I… go poof. And any injuries I get in _that_ body go poof when I poof back to this one.”

“That is the most times I’ve heard the word poof in a sentence without any of them being an insult to me.” Kurt shook his head. “You’re a werewolf.”

“I know.” He nudged Kurt towards the door.

**

“Oh, lemonade? This is new.”

“It’s a bit early for milk. Spill.”

“Spill the lemonade? But it took us long enough to get the blood off the door.”

“Finn, I know the difference between when you’re playing dumb and actually _being_ dumb.”

Finn sighed heavily. “Okay, so it was super late, and I was _super_ hungry. Like, ‘I’m gonna be up all night tossing and turning because I’m so hungry and then I’m gonna get sacked five bajillion times tomorrow because I got no sleep because I was up all night because I was hungry.’ And I remembered where the cafeteria was, so I thought I’d just sneak a little trip out there to try and see if they left it open. You know how in the movies, the guy gets bitten and he feels this excruciating pain and then he passes out?”

Kurt gulped and nodded.

“It wasn’t like that for me. It hurt like hell, don’t get me wrong, but it was about what you’d expect after being bitten by a freaking wolf. I screamed my head off and ran-slash-hobbled away. And then I’m scared as hell because I might have caught rabies or something and I can feel myself shaking with the fear and staring at the bloody hunk of meat that used to be my foot. And then, poof, my foot is a paw.” Finn took a swig of his lemonade. “And then I ate a deer, so I wasn’t hungry anymore.”

“And the other wolf?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look for him the first night, since I was busy with the deer. When I’m furry Finn, my thinking changes a little. It’s a lot clearer. I still feel like me and I understood every word you said back there, so I don’t think I’m a wild animal or anything, but everything gets simpler. Only the important things matter. Eat. Run. Pack.”

“Pack?”

Finn blushed a little. “Pack. Whenever I changed, there was this voice in my head screaming ‘where’s Mom? Where's Burt? Where's Kurt? Are they okay? Should I run back to Lima to check?’ That’s when I realized that you’re my brother, no doubt about it. Because all the stupid stuff that doesn’t matter falls away when I’m wolf me, but you were always there, loud and clear, right in the same part of my brain my mom gets. So obviously, you’re my family.”

Kurt got up and walked around the table to wrap his arms tight around Finn’s neck. Finn hugged right back. Even after Kurt let him go, he kept his arms wrapped tight around Kurt’s middle and his face pressed to Kurt’s shoulder, breathing deep. “I guess the whole pack thing is why you’ve been so cuddly since you got back.”

“I feel better when you guys are close enough for me to touch and smell and feel your warmth. Safer. Stronger. Just better. I didn’t feel like a whole person when you were all hours away.”

“Okay, come on.” Kurt picked up both their drinks and moved to the living room. He set them both down and sat down on the couch with arms spread wide. “Cuddle away.”

Finn accepted the invitation eagerly. He nestled himself comfortably against Kurt’s side and wrapped them up in the quilt— unnecessary when Finn was a human furnace (werewolf furnace) but cozy— before he continued his story. “The full moon thing is a load of bunk. I can go back and forth whenever. As soon as my stomach was full, I thought to myself, ‘okay, Finn, that’s enough now,’ and then poof! Back to my human body, not a scratch on me. My slippers were shredded and I had to ditch what was left of my shirt in the forest because it was covered in blood, but yeah.”

“You wore _slippers_ while trekking across the forest in the dark for a midnight snack?”

“I don’t think straight when I’m hungry, Kurt! So the next day I tried bringing it up to some other guys but still being subtle about it, and I think they thought I’m really into Twilight or something. I had myself convinced that it was just some freaky dream for like a week.”

“And then it happened again?”

“Yeah. I got into an argument with some jack-off and I decided I needed to walk it off. And then I ended up running it off on four feet. So it was definitely real life. Pretty much any time I get overemotional, I feel the shakes come on. I tried really hard to just tamp it down, to pretend like it never happened and go on as normal, but I couldn’t.” Finn let out a deep shudder. “God, I couldn’t even last two days at home. What happens if I’m, like, in an elevator and I poof and someone ends up with a pawful of claws to the face? I don’t know what I’m going to do when school starts, Kurt. I don’t know anything! I’m so confused and I’m fucking scared.”

Kurt felt warm tears dampening his shoulder, and he sat up to face Finn. “Finn, listen to me.” He heaved Finn back into sitting properly and wiped his cheeks with the sleeves of his cardigan (the things Kurt did for love). “We are going to figure this out, okay? And until we do, you’ll just take the stairs, problem solved!” That got a watery laugh out of him, and Kurt smiled in victory. “I don’t think you can just tamp it down and ignore it, Finn. But that’s okay, because acknowledging the problem is the first step to making it so it isn’t a problem anymore. We _will_ figure this out. We’ll figure out how to control the timing, we’ll figure out if there are more people like you out there, we’ll figure out how to break the news to Mom and Dad. We’ll get through this. I promise.”

“Pinky swear?” He held his finger out.

Kurt didn’t hesitate to intertwine it with his own. “Pinky swear.”

“Do I really have to tell our parents I’m a werewolf?”

“Absolutely.”

“I figured. But not, not today, right?”

“No, I think you’ve had enough emotional exhaustion for one day.” Kurt slouched back against the couch. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I dunno if I’ll have any answers for you, but go for it.”

“Why are _all_ of your clothes wrecked? If you can feel the change coming on, you can strip down beforehand.”

“Yeah, but what if someone saw me naked?”

Kurt stared at him for a long minute. The he stared for another one. “Finn, if someone is about to walk in on you do the poof thing, accidentally giving them a flash of the goods is the least of your concerns.”

“Oh.” Finn blinked slowly, then shook his head quickly. “Oh my god, I ruined my Batman shirt for nothing! See, dude, it’s a really good thing you found me out, because I literally never would have figured that for myself.”

They lapsed into silence, until Kurt nudged Finn in the shoulder to get his attention again. “You’re a werewolf.”

“I know.”

“And not a ‘Remus Lupin, bloodthirsty monster who’s a slave to the moon’ type of werewolf. You’re a Jacob Black.”

“I know.”

“Once this sinks in, you’re gonna think it’s gonna be the coolest thing to happen in either of our lives.”


End file.
